Chapter 208 - An Unpaid Blood Debt
As if sensing Leon's gaze, the tree spirit glanced over after it finished savoring the last trace of the tier-2 healing pill like a child would with its candy. "Rao?"
"I have a favor to ask," Leon said directly.
"Rao!" The tree spirit uttered without waiting for Leon to say what the favor was. The tree spirit struck an upright and poised standing while facing in a different direction before it reluctantly reached out an open palm in demand while giving Leon a sneaky sideways one-eye glance.
It did not take long for Leon to guess what it was implying. It was a great elder tree. It will not lower itself to do menial tasks for lesser beings, let alone favors without offerings. There was no free lunch in the world. However, it will reluctantly agree if Leon offered it more healing pills.
Leon smiled wryly, before asking helplessly, "Oi, oi. I am telling you right now, I don't have that many pills left, alright? How much do you want in order to help me find the runaway spy?"
The reason Leon thought the tree spirit would be able to find the spy easily was simple. The whole elder tree belonged to itself, it can understand everything that happens within a certain radius of itself like a large-scale divine sense.
Leon wouldn't be fooled by the appearance of the small tree spirit. It was after all the tree spirit of an elder tree at the peak of its growth. The tree spirit only manifested itself to such a small size for easier communication. If it wanted to, its manifested spirit would be no smaller than the elder tree itself. Looking for someone on its own body wouldn't even break a sweat, but even so, it was still demanded something for its 'efforts'.
Leon's face twitched when the tree spirit raised up five fingers.
"You want another 50 tier-1 healing pills?" Leon said in a low tone. However, the tree spirit shook its head. It just tasted a tier-2 healing pill, why would it settle for anything lesser?
"Rao!"
The tree spirit made several gestures urgently in order to get its message across. Leon sucked in a deep breath and said darkly, "You want 50 tier-2 healing pills for such a small favor? Why don't you go rob a bank instead!? 5 tier-2 healing pills! Any more than that then you can forget about the deal."
"Rao!" The tree spirit remained unflinching in the face of his threat to cancel the deal and even looked at him with antagonizing smugness like it was daring him to find the spy on his own. However, it cannot guarantee that it would not play some tricks and make it difficult for him, even if he scours through the entire place to search for the spy. Also, it was confused about what a bank was, but why would it need to rob a bank when it can rob him instead?
Leon seemed to have understood its underlying meaning and almost lost his shit on the spot. This tree spirit was even more black-hearted than he was. It had always been him and his mother exploiting others. How can he allow others to exploit him instead? And by a tree, no less.
Just as Leon was about to explode and call off the deal, the tree spirit quickly made a concession and pointed at the little pool of water that reduced by a large portion after the treants all took a dip in it. Even the supposedly treants that were burnt to death got revived after being tossed into the pool of water. The only ones that didn't revive were the ones that had their emerald jewel destroyed.
"You want water like that instead of my healing pills?" Leon calmed himself down and asked.
The tree spirit answered with a vigorous nod.
Leon looked tree spirit suspiciously and said in doubt, "From the beginning, the water is what you really wanted, right?"
"Rao."
The tree spirit easily admitted abashedly once the question was raised. Leon raised an eyebrow and began looking at the tree spirit differently. The tree spirit might have the mentality of a child, but it was after all a 10,000-year-old tree. One should not look down on it, lest they are in for a reckoning.
"Fair enough."
Leon only contemplated for a moment, before he agreed. Although the water was also important for hydrating the team and he couldn't recharge his ice elements quickly in the underground, it could still be done nevertheless due to the presence of elements in the air that could be used in the creation of water, albeit at a slow rate. At least compared to 50 tier-2 healing pills, his heart would not bleed.
Leon conjured another body of water of similar size and sent it over to the tree spirit. However, the tree spirit was just a manifested projection of its own spirit and couldn't absorb the water immediately.
Some rumbling was heard before a few roots appeared from below and sucked the body of water dry in an instance with its tips. The treants weren't surprised by the tree roots appearance, but everyone from Leon's group was very surprised.
'The length of the roots is greater than its height huh.' Leon mused.
"It's time for you to honor your side of the deal. Even better if you can bring the spy to me."
The tree spirit nodded happily. Although the small pool of water was far from quenching its thirst, it was still very satisfying to be able to drink water for the first time. The spy's location was instantly found and one of the tree spirit's roots went straight for him.
Surprisingly, yet at the same time not surprisingly, the direction came from the village! In a short moment, the horrified scream of a man was heard.
"Arghh!! What the hell is this!? Why is it catching me again!?! Fuck! Let me go! I didn't do anything!"
The culprit was bound tightly and brought before Leon's cold eyes. There was no mercy for traitors. If not for the culprit still having some use, Leon would have cut off his head immediately. At the same time, Lilith, Zorbek and the palace guards all made their way over as they stared at the identity of the culprit.
"You didn't do anything? Then where did you run off to when everyone was fighting? Why did you attack when I said not to?" Leon questioned coldly. His divine sense had long failed to pick up any trace of disguise from his men. That is to say that the mole in front of him had not been using a disguise, but his true look all this while.
For the elite team to have a mole, the person had either defected to the enemy's side, or the enemy had managed to plant their spies into their midst from a very early period and garnered everyone's trust over the long years. Leon suspected that it must have happened shortly after the tragedy that occurred 17 years ago.
"Since you already believe I am a spy, I have nothing to say. Just give me a quick death." Damir admitted fearlessly since there was no point in continuing the act. The victors were kings, while the losers were bandits.
Leon looked at him coldly before turning to Elder Evergreen. "The rat has been caught. How do you want to deal with this person?"
"You heard this child. How do you all want to deal with this person?" Elder Evergreen did not answer his question but directed it to the other treants. The treants didn't mince their words and directly gave Damir the death sentence.
"Kill him!"
"Kill!"
"Make him suffer!"
"Since you brought him here, you should be the one to finish him off." Elder Evergreen stated. However, there seems to be an underlying meaning behind his words. 'Kill him and you will earn our trust.'
Leon scrunched his brows as it couldn't be that simple. Killing the person outright wouldn't quell the treant's anger easily and they might even suspect that he was just using Damir as a scapegoat to buy their way into the village. In order to get the treants to be completely satisfied and accept them, he had couldn't give Damir an easy death.
"What are you waiting for? End me!" Damir urged like he was actually in a hurry to die.
"Why are you in a hurry to die? Death won't be that easy for traitors. I'll have you spill everything you know." Leon said emotionless.
"Ptui! Forget it. You won't be getting anything from my mouth except my saliva!" Damir spat.
Leon dodged the spit and summoned his set of silver needles with a cold smile. "We'll see if you can still remain tight lip after eating my needles."
Leon first sealed Damir's movements then robbed his freedom of speech and erased all possibility of suicide by shooting off his needles into various acupoints on his limbs, chest, and throat. Afterward, he shot several more needles in both his life and death acupoints on the head, heart and major meridians that stimulates pain to the greatest degree.
Soon, he gave each needle a flick once and the vibrational force generated a shockwave of nerve-wracking pain that wreaked havoc in Damir's body like a thousand insects eating him inside out.
'Ahhhh!!!'
Damir wanted to scream. But without his voice, he had no outlet to the excruciating pain, making the experience much more torturous. Within seconds, his eyes began to roll back with a pained look. When he is about to pass out, Leon would stimulate his nerves and send another wave of excruciating pain through his body to rouse him awake again.
'Kill me!' Damir seemed to beg with his eyes, but Leon paid no heed to it and continued his torturous act. Only by break the person's mind would they stop resisting and answer his questions. The scene sent shivers down the treant's spine as they even began to feel bad for the person.
It took some time before Damir's eyes dimmed like a soulless puppet that Leon finally stopped and retracted his needles. "Answer my questions. What are your sect and objective? Why did you try to kill me?"
"A debt of blood must be repaid with blood. The sins of the Crawford family may be erased but not forgotten. The Illusory Butterfly Sect collectively seeks the rich inheritance of old underneath while the master seeks the end of the Crawford bloodline…" Damir said lifelessly.
Leon frowned at Damir's vague words. Damir did not seem to have had his mind fully broken as a trace of clarity miraculously returned to his eyes. He looked Leon coldly and viciously said, "I was not the one who fired that earth spike."
"Fuck." Leon's expression changed at once, but it was too late.
With a cold smirk, Damir made his energy run amok and self-destructed, exploding into a thousand scattering fleshly pieces. Leon only had time to summon a firewall to shield himself from the flying piece of flesh, but a few pieces landed on Elder Evergreen and the others in the surrounding.
Without being displeased by the sudden filth on his face, Elder Evergreen put on a warm smile and said, "There's much we can learn from each other.. As the village chief, I welcome you all to our humble village."